Chapter 14
I had been sitting on the floor of the cage for maybe two hours, when I heard soft footsteps near the stairs. I looked over, and there was Rachel dressed all in black: yoga pants, sweater and running shoes. She was holding a black pistol as she moved quickly over to my cage.
“You’re wearing a bra,” I remarked.
“I show up to rescue you holding a Makarov semi-automatic pistol, and all you notice is that I’m wearing a bra?”
“Sorry. I’m very relieved to see you, it’s just that after your wardrobe malfunction during your previous trip, I was surprised to see that your bra made it.”
“It’s a sports bra, Professor, no hooks. Now get that brain of yours back on task. We have work to do.”
“Right, right, I’m on the job. I knew you would find a way to rescue me.”
“Thanks for leaving me that recorded video lesson on how to make the teleportation spell,” Rachel said.
“I was hoping that the laptop camera would pick up what Gregor was doing. By the way, I’ve learned it’s call the Spell of Translocation.”
“I could see what he was doing in the video,” Rachel said, “But if you hadn’t recited the procedure, I wouldn’t have been able to tell where he put each object. I searched the pockets of the clothes you were wearing when you teleported to Charlene’s office, and I found all the magical objects, including half of your handkerchief. I was hoping that Gregor still had the other half, and sure enough, it was in a drawer in his workroom. I used the half handkerchief from your pocket as the homing beacon to translocate into Gregor’s workroom.”
“Where did you get the gun?”
“When I popped into the workroom, I noticed the bow and arrows that Gregor’s henchman had in the video. They were on top of the worktable, so I searched the table’s drawers. I found this gun in one drawer, and a deck of magical symbol cards in another. Gregor must have more than one spell kit. I took the gun and the kit.”
“Good work,” I said. “You got here sooner that I expected.”
“I went up to your apartment to talk to you. When you didn’t answer my knock, I came in anyway and saw the tarp with the circles on the floor of your kitchen instead of in your bedroom. I figured out pretty quick that Gregor had followed your handkerchief to your apartment and had kidnapped you. Then I noticed the red light on your laptop indicating the camera was on. I played back the video and then went looking for your set of magical objects, which I found in the pockets of the clothes you were wearing. I set up the spell, except for the last step, and played back the video instructions a couple of times to make sure I had it right.”
“You did an excellent job.”
“Thanks. Before I finished casting the spell, I went back to my apartment, suited up and grabbed a few things. The only weapon I could think of that would make it through the teleportation was a softball bat, but when I got back to your place, I had a brainstorm. You have every kitchen gadget known to man, so I knew you would have a ceramic knife. I searched your kitchen and found two, with their own plastic sheaths.”
“They’re great for cutting vegetables,” I said. “Now can you get me out of here?”
“I’ll have to find the key to this padlock to get you out. My lock picking tools are made of steel, so I couldn’t bring them. Since I found Gregor’s spell kit in the drawer, I left the objects I used to teleport, including your half handkerchief, in the circle on Gregor’s workroom floor. Here, take Gregor’s kit and put the things in your pants pockets. I’ll slip one of the ceramic knives into your bathrobe pocket along with a piece I cut off of a placemat on your kitchen table. I hope that it will act as a homing beacon to get us back home.”
“I’m pretty sure it will, but why am I putting it all in my pockets?”
“Because I’m not sure I could cast that spell again without the video, but you can do it. Also, if I get caught, I want you to be able to get away.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” I said.
“Please, Professor, if anything happens to me, save yourself.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get Gregor and the artifact, and we’re all going to get out of here. Have you seen anybody else in this house?”
“Yes, a Master Wizard named Seth is here. I think he must be ‘Fearless Leader’ as Boris Badenov called his boss in the cartoon show. He’s English, in his seventies and wearing a nice suit. The minion is named Vlad. I haven’t seen anyone else. The last time I saw them, they were in the library.”
“OK, Professor, if I’m not back in twenty minutes, beam yourself back to Portland.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Rachel?”
“No, Professor, I’m not sure. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. I just know I have to do something to bring Gregor to justice and clear Caite. Wish me luck,” and Rachel headed for the stairs.
Time was passing impossibly slowly. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I stood helplessly waiting for Rachel’s return. I heard footsteps approaching and Vlad walked toward the cage. He had a gun in one hand and a rather large iron ring with a single key hanging from it in the other hand.
“Stand back,” Vlad said as he unlocked the cage and commanded, “Come.”
Vlad pushed me forward and followed me up upstairs with the gun trained on my back. He kept pushing me along until we entered the library. Rachel was sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair with her hands in her lap. Seth was seated in his chair, and Gregor stood beside him.
“Sit,” Vlad ordered as he pushed me toward a second wooden chair about four feet from Rachel.
“Sorry, Professor,” Rachel said. “They punk’d me.”
I didn’t know exactly what “punk’d” meant, but it obviously wasn’t good.
“Mr. Walker,” Seth intoned, “I believe you have been lying to us. Both you and this lovely lady are obviously familiar with the thaumaturgical arts, and you seem to think you can come and go here as you please. Who sent you here?”
“Nobody sent us here,” Rachel chimed in, “We came to take back the artifact.”
“And just who might you be?”
“I’m Rachel.”
“Well, Rachel, I understand that you are a private investigator. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
“Well, since you are a professional investigator, someone must have hired you. Who was that, Rachel?”
“I was hired by Beth, the woman Gregor killed, to find her missing artifact.”
“Well I expect you will never collect your fee—for several reasons: First, your client is dead. Second, you will not recover the Wand. And third, you will not leave this house alive. And neither will you, Mr. Walker.”
I was speechless.
“Am I correct in assuming that you are not, in reality, the father of the late possessor of the Wand?”
“Yes, I admitted. I have no connection with the murder victim.”
“Then why are you here, Mr. Walker?”
“I was with Rachel when Gregor kidnapped her. Then I tried to rescue her.”
“Is Rachel your daughter, Mr. Walker?”
Ouch! That stung. I’m really not old enough to be Rachel’s father.
“No, I’m her friend.”
“Lovely. At least you two won’t die alone and unloved. How much do the two of you know about the Wand of Aerten?”
“Nothing,” I said, “Except that you called it the ‘Bender of Destiny’.”
“Ah yes, so I did. Knowing even that little is too much for my liking, so you may as well know what you are dying for. Gregor, bring me the Wand.”
Gregor opened an ornately carved wooden box sitting on a side table, lifted out the Wand and handed it to Seth.
“This, the Wand of Aerten, is an ancient magical device, so ancient that its origins are unknown. It became known as the Wand of Aerten when it somehow f
ound its way to the British Isles in the Ninth Century. Some say the Vikings brought it.
“The whereabouts of the Wand have been unknown for many years. Its last known owner was Siobhan of Westmeath, a powerful Irish witch who, it is said, married a layman and retired from the craft.
“I came into possession of a drawing of the encoding symbols that are etched onto the Wand. Simply possessing these images did not, of course, give me the power of the Wand, but the knowledge of the symbols did allow me to construct a sympathetic resonator.
“If the Wand were ever to be activated again, my sympathetic resonator would generate an audible tone. A few days ago, that is just what happened. As long as the device is in sympathetic resonance with the Wand, the resonator can be used as a pivot for translocation.
“I came to Gregor with the resonator, and sent him to retrieve the Wand, which he did most efficiently. You can imagine our surprise, when the next day, the resonator began emitting a faint, pulsing tone. This was not the steady tone of sympathetic resonance, but was like the sound you hear when two guitar strings are almost in tune, but not quite. They pulse with a frequency that is the difference between the two tones. As a physicist, you know that this is called a ‘beat frequency.’ This pulsing let me know that whatever was trying to create the sympathetic resonance was not the actual Wand being activated, but was an imposter.
“The beat frequency led me to believe that someone else was attempting to construct a sympathetic resonator to find the Wand. Obviously, the attempt at constructing the resonator was crude, and would never work, but it meant that someone else was aware that the Wand had reappeared. I sent Gregor with my resonator to find this inexperienced thaumaturge.
“Imagine Gregor’s surprise when he translocated into the magic circle of a young witch. Evidently this witch went berserk, and Gregor was forced to eliminate her.”
“So it was Gregor who killed Beth,” Rachel said.
“Yes, my dear, it was Gregor.”
“Why do you want this wand so badly?” I asked.
“Anyone who knows the power of the Wand would want it. It is the Bender of Destiny. It is the only device, to my knowledge, that can actually alter the recent past and the future. Even the Wand cannot change the distant future; it can only affect the next several minutes, sometimes up to a few hours. The Wand is able to sort through the possible paths of events that could branch out from a particular point in the past.
“You see, there is some statistical uncertainty in every moment. The general direction of destiny is determined by all the actions and decisions that have been made since the Universe began running, and it has been running for a long time. The longer the program has been running, the more probable and predestined is its ultimate end. Nevertheless, the Wand can make small modifications in the current space-time and rearrange the probabilities of the ensuing events.
“It can’t make a cow fly over the moon, because that probability is infinitesimal, but it can easily change the roll of dice, the direction of an arrow or the decision of a man. That is why it is called the Bender of Destiny rather than, for instance, the Shaper of Destiny.
“You can see, can you not, how useful this Wand truly is. When activated, the Wand must be placed with the point toward the center of the earth. The Wand then chooses a point in the past. It goes back as far as would be possible and still have the current local space-time be the most probable. This is usually only a few minutes in the past. Then, rotating the wand around its longitudinal axis projects a representation of what could happen from that point in the past into the future. Tilting the wand backward causes the projection to advance in time until the probability of that sequence becomes no more likely than the other possibilities. That is why the Wand cannot affect the future very far. Rotating the Wand as it is tilted navigates you through the possible paths or branches that your destiny could take.
“Once the magician has selected his possible future, all that he must do is to continue tilting the Wand all the way down until it is horizontal and pointed toward the desired possibility. Then his destiny has been set.”
“That’s fantastic!” I enthused. “How do you activate the Wand?”
“You realize that a magician never reveals his secrets. However, since you will not be in this world for very long, I will grant your dying request, although I doubt that you will be able to understand it.
“To activate the Wand of Aerten, the magician must first cut his right index finger, place one or two drops of his blood on the present end of the Sigil of Aerten and let the blood flow down the Sigil. Then, he must use his bloodied finger to trace a unicursal hexagram over the Symbols of Creation in the order they were coded into the Universe. And finally, he must stand the Wand vertically and place his thumb over the Symbol of Destiny. After Destiny has been bent, he simply removes his thumb and fate will proceed as programmed. Quite simple if you know the spell and have the knowledge to cast it.
“And now, I am afraid, we can let you two live no longer. You know too much to be allowed to go free.”
“Why do we know too much?” Rachel asked. “We don’t know who you really are; we don’t know where we are; we don’t know your plans; and even if we had your wand thingy, we don’t have the skill to use it. If I hadn’t had half of the Professor’s handkerchief, I wouldn’t have been able to get here. I certainly won’t be able to get here again.”
“I can’t take that chance, my dear. The secrets of real magic are not for every human to know. In fact, it may have never been intended for any human to know them, but over the centuries, some of us humans have managed to crack the code here and there. Perhaps a few of us were given a few secrets that were passed down through the generations. It could be that humans were never able to decode the exploits without external help. No matter, the secrets are too few and too valuable to be revealed to the ignorant laity.”
“How many magicians are there?” I asked.
“I do not know the number of real magicians that exist today. We are secretive, and to a large extent we compete with each other. There is no Fraternal Order of Magicians, no licensing bureau. Occasionally, a few of us will band together into a coterie for a common purpose. Gregor and I are members of a coterie, which will soon convene here in this room. As a matter of fact, I must translocate to my home to prepare for the convocation of our coterie that will take place here tonight.
“Gregor, I charge you with the mission of killing these two intruders and translocating their bodies to the disposal site. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Master Seth. I will dispose of them right away.”
Master Seth then left the library and headed toward the workroom, presumably to use the magic circle to translocate to his home.
“Vlad, we take intruders to dungeon,” Gregor said. “You two follow me.”
The four of us went to the basement stairs and started down in single file, led by Gregor, then me, then Rachel with the armed Vlad bringing up the rear. As I was about halfway down, I heard Rachel stumble. I stopped and looked back only to see that Rachel had grabbed Vlad’s gun hand and was pulling him over her shoulder in what looked like a judo throw. As Vlad went over the stair rail, Rachel wrested the gun from his hand.
I took this as my cue, and I jumped forward on top of Gregor and the two of us fell down the stairs with me on top. Gregor was unmoving and seemingly unconscious as I managed to stand. Vlad was on his feet with his shortsword drawn headed for me. Rachel fired once and Vlad fell to the floor.
“Are you all right Professor?”
“Yes, thank you. Gregor made an excellent cushion.”
I walked over to examine Vlad, and something moved in the corner of my eye. Gregor was kneeling and pointing a pistol up the stairs toward Rachel. Two shots rang out almost simultaneously. Gregor fell backward and Rachel fell down the stairs to land at the bottom near Gregor.
I rushed over to Rachel and stretched her out o
n her back. She was bleeding from her chest. Her face was colorless and her eyes were staring into the distance. I checked her neck for a pulse—nothing. I pressed my ear over her heart, but there was no heartbeat. Rachel was dead.